Search form

You are here

Help for Homeowners Hurt by Sham Mortgage Relief Company

Share this page

A homeowner who’s worried about foreclosure or desperate to refinance might listen to a caller who promises to help. Unfortunately, not all cold-calling telemarketers do what they promise. Enter the Federal Trade Commission’s nearly $3.6 million settlement with Prime Legal Plans. Claiming to represent a non-profit, Prime Legal Plan’s telemarketers called homeowners nationwide, and promised expert legal help — for a fee — to stop foreclosure. Homeowners who paid the company $595 to $750 a month to save their homes ended up with more debt, and little or no help. The FTC will work with the court to return money to the homeowners.

If you're having trouble paying your mortgage or have a foreclosure notice, contact your lender immediately. You may be able to negotiate a new repayment schedule. Legitimate resources are available to help, including housing counselors who are knowledgeable about foreclosure prevention options.

The FTC enforces the Mortgage Assistance Relief Services (MARS) Rule, which makes it illegal for a company that sells mortgage assistance relief to collect any fees until it gets the result you want.

Please let us know if you paid a fee in advance to a company that claimed it would help modify your mortgage or save your home from foreclosure but didn’t come through.

Comments

saved by the bell! I went to the bank to wire money and the teller asked questions.He suggested that I inquire further before sending the money by wire. The Better Business Bureau rated the Credance Law Group with a F.

My husband and I have been going through this for almost 2 years. We have been through 4 attorney's and none were able to help us. We learned a lot along the way and as I sit and read all your posts my heart breaks for you. I want to save you all a lot of time, grief and money. Do not talk to anyone claiming they can help you with a modification or foreclosure. ..plain and simple. If they are soliciting then you can bet 99% they are scammers. All you need to do is visit the federal trade commission website and get the number for HOPE. You can also lookup the number for HARP. Either one of these government agencies will help you for a very minimum fee to no fee at all. If there is a resolution for you..they will find it.
also read the advice on the Federal Trade Commission site and you can also visit the Attorney General site.
If you go to Google and type foreclosure scammers...you won't believe what you can learn. Fact is...don't talk to any of them...that's None, please. Save your headache and your money. Take it from someone who knows ... $17,000 later. Goodluck to you all.

who is Seterus,inc and why are the allowed to be a servicer to a mortgage loan that is held by Fannie Mae and was sold by citimortgage to handle and they are not a BBB rated company and they will have all you info that is private like ssn# they need to be checked out thanks

Seterus is an actual servicer, They most likely are not scamming you. They are probably servicing your loan that is backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac- they don't typically "hold" loans and you need to find out because failure to pay them if you are supposed to can cause you to go into foreclosure

Seterus Inc. is horrific. They illegally added an escrow to my account when I never had one to begin with after my loan was transferred to them. I hAve spoken with more than 20 people no one calls back. They misappropriated my payment and I see no end in site. This company should be shut down and put out of business immediately.

Seterus purchases mortgages already in trouble. Please look into them. A simple google search gives the tip of the iceberg. I can't sell my home because they won't give me an account number, payment amount, or payoff. They have never sent any information to me after buying my mortgage two years ago. This sounds unbelievable, but it is true. They take homes from people as well as too much money through unethical practices. The FTC must do something about this.

If you want law enforcement to look into a business, please report the business. Go to FTC.gov/complaint and give details about the business and your experience. The information you give will go into a secure database that law enforcement uses for investigations.

File your complaint against Setterus on the CFPB website. They are the watchdog agency, put in place by the Dodd Frank Walstreet Reform Bill. CFPB is the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Good Luck

I have received unwanted scam mortgage calls from the following number: 213 221 3703. I have asked multiple times to be removed from the call list and I continue to receive calls from rude, inconsiderate callers. I asked to speak to a manager and a phone number or email to report to, however, the callers continually say they do not have any information to share. I have reported them 2 times to the Do Not Call list. I have never heard such a rude, fraudulent company continuing to call my home line with consistency typically in the late evening hours

I received a call from someone named Robert Maris at the Estes Law Firm in Beverly Hills, CA telling me that I could get my mortgage loan modified to a fixed 2% for the remaining life of the loan. When I read the documentation that he emailed me I learned that I would have to pay them money upfront to take my case. That sounded fishy to me. I have forwarded their information to the FTC complaint website. Beware!

I also received a phone call from someone representing Estes Law Firm in Beverly Hills, CA with the same offer. I haven't done anything with this info yet, I'm still checking on if this is a valid company or not.

I also am VERY interested in knowing more about this same firm called Estes Law. Can anyone verify their reliability / legitimacy? I'm on the very of doing the same "mortgage restructuring" with (by) them ... against the advice of my wife!

So glad others are asking the same question. I filled a form online while searching for ways to lower my interests rate, the next day I got a phone call from Michael from Estes Law. I was extremely skeptical at first. After 2 months of back and forth with my uncooperative lender HSBC and the estes law firm I was losing hope but finally they managed to lower my interest rate to 2% from 6%! The crazy thing is , everytime I spoke to my bank, they pretended they never got any documents from my attorney , then when the law firm called they would cooprate. I am obviously extremely happy with the result but I did take a chance as they informed me there is no guarantees in any legal work. Good luck.

I dealt with them through the email and phone. Interaction sounded suspicious to me so I decided to break it off. Their website is only from January of 2014 which is another red flag.

I dealt with Robert Maris. He told me that I would not have to pay them anything unless I got my loan modified. That is great except that retainer agreement seems to indicate that I would have to pay them to complete certain BS tasks with no promise of favorable outcome.

Robert than tried to assure me that I would be refunded if loan modification did not come true. That would be great as well, except that retainer indicates that no other agreements outside of the retainer apply. Oh and BTW, you give up the right to sue and would have to go through arbitration to be decided based on the wording in the retainer.

I tried to get them to add the guarantee into retainer but he kept making excuses and kept trying to suck me further into the process.

Last thing he said was that retainer cannot be changed because my lender would not agree with it. That is total BS because retainer is the contract between me and their law firm and my lender is not a party to it.

More red flags:

1. Robert kept trying to talk to me on the phone rather than trough email. In addition to having an email trail, it is easier to pressure person over the phone than trough email.

2. Rather than straight, forward answers to simple question, Robert would give a paragraph on procedure but would not clearly answer the question.

3. He makes it sound as if their procedure is set is in stone but it's totally cool and not an issue and I should just trust him. For example: retainer is a "standard retainer" and is just a formality and everybody goes trough this so I should just trust him. Actually retainer is just a PDF file and you can change it easily.

However, everything I wrote is just my suspicion and I do not know 100% if that was a scam or not. I have decided not to take that risk.

And finally if you do qualify to loan rate modification you do not need to retain a lawyer. If you do want a lawyer, you can use any lawyer.

I would not give them any money. I have sent them $3,000.00 to date with the promise of a 2% fixed rate. I began this process in January. I have received several calls from a rep named Edgar informing all is going well. I contacted my bank BOA and was informed just the opposite that there has been no follow up since 3-13-14 and today is 6-10-14. Be careful I have not received anything promised

I paid 2000 to this law firm, because they promised to reduce my mortgage loan to 2%, I started the process in 8 March, and this time August 19 nothing happen so far. Called Chase and the informed me they been trying to contact Estes Law with no response, for the last 2 week I beiong trying to talk to Edgar Dias and Eric Godsein with not respond at all, BE AWARE IS SOMETHING FAKE WITH THIS LAW FIRM.

The Federal Mortgage Marketplace program is an important part of the Obama Administration's comprehensive plan to stabilize the U.S. housing market by helping homeowners get mortgage relief and avoid foreclosure. To meet the various needs of homeowners across the country, Making Home Affordable programs offer a range of solutions that may be able to help you take action before it's too late.

How do you know that the Federal Mortgage Marketplace is legit? They contacted me and said that I was approved for a loan modification, but I was to send them my payment not the mortgage company when everyone says don't do that. I wanted to check them out before I sent them anything.

I am a Military veteran, and like hundreds of thousands of other veterans,I financed my home through Mortgage Investor's Corp. While doing some research on the Internet, I found out they had been sued by the Federal Gov't for violating the Truth in Lending Act. I haven't been contacted by anyone about this, but now that I know I will try and find out how to handle it. My concern is for the veterans who are unaware of this altogether, and will lose their opportunity to recover any damages they may be entitled to. This has been ongoing in excess of 2 years. I'm sure there is a database which shows all of the Homeowners who have done business with this Company. Shouldn't someone have already contacted the Homeowners who need to know about this?

I'm not really sure who is helping Homeowners who were affected directly by the mortgage meltdown and all of the scams perpetrated by financial institutions. The facts are as follow millions of homeowners were victimized by these lenders (prime and subprime) institutions who were found guilty of many violations to Federal Laws and Consumer protection Laws in connection to the mortgage meltdown and the destruction of our economy. Some of these Banks decided to settled out of court and paid billions of dollars for their crimes, but in reality most of these individuals who perpetrated the biggest scam in the history of the U.S.A. are walking around freely without any worries. In addition remember when our congress decided to bailed them out supposedly to save our economic system from collapsing. Well, the reality is that our congress decided to give our tax dollars(billions of dollars) to the same individuals who got us in the worse economic disaster in the history of the U.S.A. These people are not your friends and I think you know who they are. Remember, how they took our tax dollars to fix their books and gave each other bonuses for a job well done!!!!. I'm still waiting for some sensible resolution for homeowners to keep their homes AND AWAY from FRAUDCLOSURE SCAMS without any red tape or regulations that make no sense. Including the lack of respect to Homeowners across these nation who are being railroaded by our judicial systems and who continue to think that being Pro-Bank or to come up with a bias decision only to helped speed up the process of FRAUDCLOSURE, WITHOUT ANY REGARDS TO HOMEOWNERS IS REPULSIVE AND UNCONTITUTIONAL. Remember, we are now responsible for the biggest tax increase in the history of America, Thanks to our government and all these politicians who work for the best interest of the powerful and greedy. Fight Back!!! America....to be continue!!!!

You can contact your bank to let them know someone changed your password without your authorization. Ask them about their security measures to protect their clients’ information and if you’re not satisfied you might want to look for a new bank. If you think this company has committed fraud you can report it to your state Attorney General and to the FTC.

I just posted about them. I am also using them. Hopefully this is a legal group that can help us through government programs to save our homes. I thought I was contacting a group through the government programs and still crossing my fingers. The lender's attorney is asking for the documentation regarding this group to verify their legal status. Of course, I have already paid them two payments and the last is due end of this month to get the modification.. Hopefully I will find out for sure before my next payment is due. I hate to pay the final payment, find out it is some scam and then have to take legal action to try and get anything back from them. Hope we get good news!!!!

Has there been reported scams from the National Foreclosure Rescue Center, INC in Enterprise FL? They are saying they have investigated my mortgage and get me about 50% reduction in monthly payments @ 25 rate for 40 yr. term. Can someone who has used them advise?

We are currently working with American Mortgage Advisors and being charged a fee of almost $4,000 for them to work with our lender to keep from going into foreclosure. I thought I contacted an agency that was approved for government relief, but now I am not so sure after speaking with my attorney's office and the lender's attorney is questioning it. How do you know if you are dealing with a legite agency that is using a government program when that is what you inquired about? If it is a government program, are there supposed to be fees attached. If this is a scam, will I be able to get my monies I have paid back leagally?

Here’s some key advice: The FTC's MARS Rule gives you rights – and sets out requirements for people who sell mortgage assistance relief services. You don't have to pay any money until the company delivers the results you want. It's illegal for a company to charge you a penny until: it's given you a written offer for a loan modification or other relief from your lender; and you accept the offer. You can find more infomrtation in this FTC article

To find legitimate help, you may contact a credit counselor through the Homeownership Preservation Foundation (HPF), a nonprofit organization that operates the national 24/7 toll-free hotline (1.888.995.HOPE) with free, personalized assistance to help at-risk homeowners avoid foreclosure. HPF is a member of the HOPE NOW Alliance of mortgage servicers, mortgage market participants and counselors.

I have also been contacted by American Mortgage Advisors. THey are promising me a modification with 2% interest. I was doing some research into the company and am having trouble. There was another company in GA with the same name and have since closed down. This new company works out of a vitrual office in a different part of GA. They are rated by the National Business Ass. but i am not yet convinced that they are a legitimate company. I am goint to try and see what the response is from the company when I mention the MARS rules. I was not aware of that. Evie1956, Please keep us posted.

Well....My husband and I have been scammed out of almost $4,000 by American Mortgage Advisors. They said they could get our monthly mortgage payments down and a low 2% rate. Come to find out from our current lender NationStar that they cannot do a modification as a third party. They have to work with the investor who is Freddie Mac for us. We have a modification in process, but through NationStar. I thought I was going through HARP participant, but guess what....it was a scam. Please don't let these people scam you or anyone else! We had to learn the hard way. According to my attorney, to dispute, it would cost around $7500 to go through their arbitration policy.

I just got word from my attorney that 1)government programs will not charge you any monies up front....so who is American Mortgage Advisors? 2) My attorney just received a notice from our lender that we have been in a modification program since last October....I wasn't notified of this. Now, if this is true...they won't consider another medication request from AMA, correct? So have I wasted my money? Any opinions out there?

My loan was sold to Seterus, they never sent me a welcome letter, so they want talk to me about my loan. I have also sent a letter and no response. Why can banks sell across state lines but Health insurance can't? We need changes America!

Pages

Leave a Comment

Read Our Privacy Act Statement

It is your choice whether to submit a comment. If you do, you must create a user name, or we will not post your comment. The Federal Trade Commission Act authorizes this information collection for purposes of managing online comments. Comments and user names are part of the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) public records system, and user names also are part of the FTC’s computer user records system. We may routinely use these records as described in the FTC’s Privacy Act system notices. For more information on how the FTC handles information that we collect, please read our privacy policy.

Comment Policy

This is a moderated blog; we review all comments before they are posted. We expect participants to treat each other and the bloggers with respect. We will not post comments that do not comply with our commenting policy. We may edit comments to remove links to commercial websites or personal information before posting them.

Comments submitted to this blog become part of the public domain. To protect your privacy and the privacy of others, please do not include personal information. Also, do not use this blog to report fraud; instead, file a complaint.